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Dolittle (2020)   Roundly slated, as if its troubled production and rejigged release dates condemn it to purgatory without due consideration, Dolittle isn’t nearly the abomination critics would have you believe. It makes an affable, inoffensively watchable family entertainment, lacking the bloat of the Rex Harrison version or the shamelessness of Eddie Murphy’s. It may never quite be at ease with itself or sure of what it wants to be, but it’s largely underserving of being hung out to dry as the latest example of Hollywood excess; there are other, far more deserving recipients, usually found in any given calendar quarter of

Birds of Prey (and the Fanatabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)   One has to wonder at Bird of Prey’s 79 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I mean, such things are to be taken with a pinch of salt at the best of times, but it would be easy, given the disparity between such evident approval and the actually quality of the movie, to suspect insincere motives on the part of critics, that they’re actually responding to its nominally progressive credentials – female protagonists in a superhero flick! – rather than its content. Which I’m quite sure couldn’t possibly

Bad Santa (2003)   Full disclosure: I haven’t seen Bad Santa: The Director’s Cut. I suppose I should, in a show of solidarity for unsullied visions, regard it as the definitive version, particularly considering the wanton meddling, interference and upset Harvey Weinstein has caused filmmakers over the years. But the sad fact is, director’s cuts aren’t always the best version, and producer power sometimes – sometimes – can be a positive rather than negative influence. I’d doubtless watch the Director’s Cut if it was on hand, but I’ve been very happy with both versions of Bad Santa I have seen, and feel no urgent need for an

Ad Astra (2019)   Would Apocalypse Now have finished up a classic had Captain Willard been ordered on a mission to exterminate his mad dad with extreme prejudice, rather than a mysterious and off-reservation colonel? Ad Astra features many stunning elements. It’s an undeniably classy piece of filmmaking from James Gray, who establishes his tone from the get-go and keeps it consistent, even through various showy set pieces. But the decision to give its lead character an existential crisis entirely revolving around his absent father is its reductive, fatal flaw, ultimately deflating much of the air from Gray’s space balloon. So by the end, Ad

The Exorcist III (1990)   The demand for reshoots on The Exorcist III, as seems to be the case more often than not, failed to bolster its box office. One might argue that alone made tampering with William Peter Blatty’s vision for the picture redundant. Ironically, however, it may have resulted in a superior film; while I haven’t seen the “Director’s Cut” version of the film assembled a few years back (glued together with sticky tape and Blu Tack might be more accurate, given the quality of the materials available), nothing I’ve read about it makes it sound markedly superior to

Shakespeare in Love (1998)   You see? Sometimes Oscar does get it right. Not that the backlash post-announcement would have you crediting any such thing. No, Saving Private Ryan had the rug unscrupulously pulled from under it by Harvey Weinstein essentially buying Shakespeare in Love’s Best Picture statuette through a lavish promotional campaign. So unfair! It is, of course, nothing of the sort. If the rest of Private Ryan were of similar quality to its opening sequence, the Spielberg camp might have had a reasonable beef, but Shakespeare in Love was simply in another league, first and foremost thanks to a screenplay that sang like no other in recent

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)   To credit its Rotten Tomatoes score (22 percent), you’d think X-Men: Dark Phoenix was a travesty that besmirched the name of all good and decent (read: MCU proper) superhero movies, or even last week’s underwhelming creature feature (Godzilla: King of Monsters has somehow reached forty percent fresh, despite being a lesser beast in every respect). Is the movie’s fate a self-fulfilling prophecy, what with delayed release dates and extensively reported reshoots? Were critics castigating a fait accompli turkey without giving it a chance? That would be presupposing they’re all sheep, and in fairness, other supposed write-offs have come

White Boy Rick (2018)   ‘71, Yann Demange’s edge-of-the-seat feature debut, had me eager to see whatever he did next (one of those things turned out not to be the next Bond movie, for which he was cited as shortlisted; probably for the best to avoid having his career derailed quite so soon). Unfortunately, while this account of the FBI’s youngest informant boasts first-rate performances (not least Richie Merritt, debuting in the title role) and an unsurprisingly authentic milieu – Detroit looks an even less savoury place to live than it did in Robocop – Demange somehow allows investment in the fate of Rick

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)   The unloved and neglected Jungle Book movie that wasn’t Disney’s, Jungle Book: Origins was originally pegged for a 2016 release before being pushed to last year, then this, and then offloaded by Warner Bros onto Netflix. During which time, the title changed to Mowgli: Tales from the Jungle Book, then Mowgli, and finally Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. The assumption is usually that the loser out of vying projects – and going from competing with a near-$1bn-grossing box office titan to effectively straight-to-video is the definition of a loser – is by its nature inferior. But Andy Serkis’ movie is a much

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)   It’s probably fair to suggest A Fish Called Wanda was the last time John Cleese felt he had something to prove creatively. Certainly, the belated “sequel” Death Fish II/ Fierce Creatures seemed designed to squander the massive amount of good will its predecessor engendered. Post-Python (and Fawlty Towers), he’d become better known for having his head examined and profiting from the world of corporate training videos than building on his comedic legacy. His one stab at headlining a production, Clockwise, had met with mild success at home but complete indifference everywhere else. Plus, he was only showing up there as a performer.

The Predator (2018)   Is The Predator everything you’d want from a Shane Black movie featuring a Predator (or Yautja, or Hish-Qu-Ten, apparently)? Emphatically not. We’ve already had a Shane Black movie featuring a Predator – or the other way around, at least – and that was on another level. The problem – aside from the enforced reshoots, and the not-altogether-there casting, and the possibility that full-on action extravaganzas, while delivered competently, may not be his best foot forward – is that I don’t think Black’s really a science-fiction guy, game as he clearly was to take on the permanently beleaguered franchise.

The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)   As soon as the rumour broke that Paramount might be selling God Particle, or Cloverfield Station, to Netflix, entirely bypassing a cinema release, speculation ran rampant that they had a turkey on their hands and wished to palm it off. After all, this came off the back of reshoots and shifts in release dates. So when confirmation came, in something of a publicity coup, that it would touch down on the same day as its trailer, there was an understandable buzz of anticipation; this was exactly the kind of rug-pull surprise the movie series had previously done

Freejack (1992)   No, I won’t be making out that Freejack is an unfairly maligned, hidden classic or that it deserves cult status. It’s a movie I’d hazard got a greenlight off the back of the promise of sci-fi action with a dash of the cerebral, à la Total Recall (right down to a co-screenplay credit for Ronald Shusett) but stumbles resoundingly in both areas. Indeed, even its premise is only one-part good, such that Netflix’s forthcoming Altered Carbon, boasting a not dissimilar mind transfer conceit, is wisely not going with the daftly depicted time-travel element. Consequently, Freejack was rightly trashed on its release. Does it have anything to

All the Money in the World (2017)   Passionless Ridley Scott has been the most common Ridley Scott of the last two decades, a craftsman churning out technically proficient movies in little danger of lingering in the mind. He’s been at his best with more idiosyncratic subject matter (the Alien prequels, The Counsellor), although your mileage may vary on those, and at his worst churning out autopilot epics (Exodus: Gods and Kings). All the Money in the World comes in at the upper end of the solid but unremarkable scale, spurred on by several impressive performances, let down by an entirely unimpressive one, buoyed by

Sliver (1993)   It must have seemed like a no-brainer. Sharon Stone, fresh from flashing her way to one of the biggest hits of 1992, starring in a movie nourished with a screenplay from the writer of one of the biggest hits of 1992. That Sliver is one Stone’s better performing movies says more about how no one took her to their bosom rather than her ability to appeal outside of working with Paul Verhoeven. Attempting to replicate the erotic lure of Basic Instinct, but without the Dutch director’s shameless revelry and unrepentant glee (and divested of Michael Douglas’ sweaters), it flounders, a

World War Z (2013)   Summer 2013 has proved unfortunately consistent in one key respect so far; movies have engrossed and enthralled for the first half-to-two-thirds of their running time, only to fizzle into narrative incoherence or disappointment during the final act; Oblivion, Star Trek, Man of Steel, now World War Z. Only Iron Man Three is left standing proud. It is never less than apparent that WWZ is no more than a string of well-executed set pieces; an increasingly familiar rendition of the apocalypse on an enormous scale, but with absolutely nothing new to say about it. But it’s still something of a miracle World War Z is as

Gangster Squad (2013)   Substitute Al Capone for Mickey Cohen, and you have a gangster movie closely following The Untouchables’ formula but devoid of that film’s style and wit; an elite squad of police misfits are assembled to bring down a mob boss, and they aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Director Ruben Fleischer (whose Zombieland was a lot of fun, but it’s difficult to see how anyone thought he’d bring out the best in this material) and writer Will Beall are no Brian De Palma and David Mamet, but I think they’d quite like to be. The Untouchables played on the clichés of